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Exploring UFOs and Extraterrestrial LifeTue, 03 Mar 2015 20:00:32 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermudez – Chile’s Official UFO Agencyhttp://www.openminds.tv/general-ret-ricardo-bermudez-chiles-official-ufo-agency/31993
http://www.openminds.tv/general-ret-ricardo-bermudez-chiles-official-ufo-agency/31993#commentsTue, 10 Feb 2015 21:55:07 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=31993Chilean Air Force General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermúdez is the Director of the Committee of Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomenon (CEFAA), the Chilean government’s official organization for the study of unknown aerial phenomena. General Bermúdez has also been the Director of the Technical School of Aeronautics, the School of Engineers, and the sub-Director of Chile’s Air ...

]]>Chilean Air Force General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermúdez is the Director of the Committee of Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomenon (CEFAA), the Chilean government’s official organization for the study of unknown aerial phenomena. General Bermúdez has also been the Director of the Technical School of Aeronautics, the School of Engineers, and the sub-Director of Chile’s Air Force Academy. At CEFAA, he leads a group of scientists at the doctorate level, who form the committee along with aviation experts from the General Directorate of Civil Aeronautics. General Bermúdez is a former fighter pilot, served as an air attaché in London, and commanded the Third Air Brigade in southern Chile.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/general-ret-ricardo-bermudez-chiles-official-ufo-agency/31993/feed0Chile’s UFO investigations to be aided by prominent French aerospace organizationhttp://www.openminds.tv/chiles-ufo-investigations-aided-prominent-french-aerospace-organization/31358
http://www.openminds.tv/chiles-ufo-investigations-aided-prominent-french-aerospace-organization/31358#commentsTue, 16 Dec 2014 19:56:39 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=31358The Aeronautical and Astronautical Association of France (3AF) has signed an agreement with Chile's Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA) to cooperate on the study of UFOs.

]]>The Aeronautical and Astronautical Association of France (3AF) has signed an agreement with Chile’s Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA) to cooperate on the study of UFOs. 3AF posted an article on their website late last month explaining their newly founded relationship with CEFAA.

3AF is an important organization in France, and in Europe’s aeronautical industry in general. Similar to the United State’s American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, it is a society for those participating in, or interested in, the aerospace industry.

Surprisingly, 3AF also has a strong interest in the investigation of UFOs. Although, it might not be too surprising to those who know that the French government is one of very few that have an official organization that investigates UFOs. It is called the Study and Information Group on Aerospace Unidentified Phenomena (GEIPAN), and is part of France’s National Center for Space Studies (CNES), their version of NASA.

CEFAA, which is also an official government sanctioned UFO research organization, differs from GEIPAN in that it is part of Chile’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGAC), the equivalent to the FAA here in the U.S.

3AF also has a UFO study commission called 3AF/SIGMA2. This commission aides GEIPAN in the scientific analysis of UFO reports, and they will now help CEFAA in a similar fashion. 3AF’s article explains that CEFAA has determined that the UFO phenomena is real, and that it may pose a risk to aviation. Now they wish to further examine “their causes and their effects.”

Earlier this year, CEFAA held a meeting with military officials and other experts to determine whether UFOs pose a threat. Although they decided that they do not seem to pose a direct threat, nor do they seem to intend to do harm, they determined there could be some risk posed by UFOs distracting pilots.

In the past, 3AF also has come to the conclusion that the UFO phenomena is real. In May, 2010, the 3AF/SIGMA commission released a progress report. In it, they agreed with the conclusions of the Committee for In-Depth Studies (COMETA) Report of 1999. COMETA was a group of high-ranking retired French military and intelligence officers who conducted an independent study determining that UFOs were real and possibly of extraterrestrial origins.

In their report in May, 2010, 3AF/SIGMA wrote: “Many documents and materials examined by the authors of this report confirm it. We have therefore retained, among some others but only as a working hypothesis, the possibility that most of the craft observed can have a non-terrestrial origin.”

Dinner on October 30, 2014 From left to right: General (ret) Ricardo Bermudez (Director of CEFAA), Michel Scheller (President of 3AF). (Credit: 3AF)

In February, 2013, then president of the 3AF/SIGMA commission, Alain Boudier, shared their findings in the United States at the International UFO Congress.

Another aspect of the agreement between the 3AF and CEFAA was the international exchange of information. 3AF wrote: “CEFAA also urged France and 3AF/SIGMA2 especially to play a role in facilitating the international exchange of data and expertise on [UFOs].”

General Ricardo Bermudez, Director of CEFAA, has often stressed that UFO investigations should be an international effort. In February of 2012, he told the crowd at the International UFO Congress that he felt there should be an agency located at the United Nations that directs UFO investigations and shares information worldwide.

CEFAA has worked hard to build relationships with other official governmental UFO research organizations, such as those in Argentina, Peru, and Uruguay. They have also established relationships with prominent non-governmental UFO research organizations. In the U.S., they work closely with the National Aviation Reporting Center on Anomalous Phenomena (NARCAP), which collects and analyzes reports from pilots.

Kean told Billy Cox of the Herald-Tribune, “I know from personal experience that the relationship of other governments to this issue is important to members of the U.S. government in terms of considering a new official involvement with this issue.”

Leslie Kean being interviewed by Chilean media during a visit in 2012. General Bermúdez stands to her right. (Credit: DGAC)

Kean continued:

The fact that the two leading agencies in the world – one from Europe and the other from South America – are joining forces is extremely significant, and hopefully this step forward will help encourage our government to take the subject seriously and to join in the growing international effort.

“The U.S. role is important, because once the U.S. is on board – even by simply appointing one staffer to evaluate the validity of U.S. involvement – many other countries will come on board. Even a crack in this now shut door would be enough to radically change the picture. If we can simply assign a government appointee to evaluate the question — are UFOs worthy of investigation? — then we have made a giant step forward.

CEFAA’s work garnered a lot of media attention this summer, when Kean wrote a blog entry for the Huffington Post about a UFO investigation CEFAA could not explain. Later that summer, their conclusions regarding the threat UFOs pose also received media attention in the U.S.

Perhaps this attention, along with their efforts to form relationships with credible UFO research organizations around the world, will influence other governments to follow their example.

It has been over 40 years since the U.S. government has had an official UFO research organization, and the UK has recently closed theirs. This may be an area where the U.S. government will be happy to remain on the sidelines – or behind closed doors – for a few more decades.

]]>The Chilean government’s civil aviation department recently met on whether or not UFOs pose a threat to their military air operations. Upon examination of their recorded UFO cases, and with input from their official UFO investigation organization, they decided that no threat exists.

Unlike the United States, and many other western countries, Chile takes the UFO phenomenon very seriously. They have their own agency for investigating the phenomenon called the Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA). It is part of the Ministerial Department of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), their equivalent to our FAA. CEFFAA also works closely with the Chilean air force.

Author and journalist Leslie Kean has been keeping tabs on CEFAA and broke the news of the meeting on a blog post on the Huffington Post. She says the meeting took place on July 31, and was organized by CEFAA’s director, General Ricardo Bermúdez. He invited nineteen experts with varying background to explore the question of military air safety in regards to UFOs. The group convened for three hours.

Coverage of the meeting on the official DGAC YouTube page can be seen above.

Kean says the group had already determined that UFOs are a real phenomenon worthy of serious study. This includes scientists and DGAC specialists. She writes:

Among the DGAC specialists were the director of the Meteorological Observatory, the chief of Radar Operations Metropolitan Center, the head of Accident Investigations, DGAC chief of operations, the director of Airport Security Operations, and an aerospace engineer.

Representatives from different branches of the armed forces and the police corps were also present. All of them, including a navy commander who is in charge of flight security for navy aviation, are also pilots, or have been in the past. Along with Mercado, Bermúdez was once a combat pilot.

Members of CEFAA and the DGAC meet with other experts to discuss the threat UFOs pose to military air operations. (Credit: DGAC)

Kean highlighted some of the discussion leading to the final decision. The DGAC chief of operations pointed out that their evidence shows unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP), another term for UFOs, demonstrates “intelligent behavior,” and as such it is important to discover the nature of the UAP’s intentions.

He said, “Intelligence is what matters. If this is so, we must ask: has it shown hostility or carried out openly threatening maneuvers? Has it actually attacked our aircraft? To date, this doesn’t seem to be the case. We cannot possibly call something a threat to something or someone if they have not shown any open intention to do harm.”

Navy captain Roberto Borè agreed, saying, “Aside from any natural distractions to the flight crews, the risks so far have been null. We cannot call UAP a risk to our operations, not even a low risk.”

Radar control chief Mauricio Blanco also agreed, but stressed the need for a scientific evaluation of the risk. Blanco told the group, “In aeronautics, we have to measure risk scientifically and we have all the tools for that. We have to establish a ‘risk matrix,’ considering possibility and probability. The risk level [for UAP] has not been analyzed. It can be measured, and given the probabilities, this level is very low.”

Throughout her report, Kean points out the vast difference in the way the UFO phenomenon is handled in Chile versus the U.S. She writes about her visit to a radar center in Santiago where Blanco collects UFO reports. They have a careful protocol to maintain the integrity of the cases, and Kean says she found it “hard to get used to the fact that UFOs are fully accepted as part of life in Chile.”

CEFAA’s Director of International Affairs Jose Lay told her, “For Chileans, this is completely normal and we don’t consider it news at all.”

During the meeting, officials comment on UFOs as a matter of fact, such as the DGAC expert on accident investigations who said, “Until now, in practice, we have seen only the effects. And those we have captured through photographs, videos, official reports, testimonies, etc. And thus, we are able to say the phenomenon exists. But its origin, we have not defined. And without this definition, we cannot establish a strategy to counteract it. … I have spoken with pilots who have had sightings. So far, none has experienced undue concern, just plain curiosity.”

In the end, the experts agreed that more multi-disciplined study into the nature of UFOs was necessary. The air force psychologist also suggested more education for pilots about UFOs. A nuclear chemist in the meeting also explained why this would be important.

Leslie Kean being interviewed by Chilean media during a visit in 2012. General Bermúdez stands to her right. (Credit: DGAC)

The chemist said, “If our civilian and military pilots are well informed about UAP, the risk due to distraction will come down to a minimum because the surprise factor will not be there.”

Kean says the conclusions regarding air safety were clear.

“Based on the evaluation at the meeting, the committee concluded that UAP do not present a threat or a danger to air operations, either civilian or military,” Bermúdez said. “Although there have been a small number of accidents attributed to UAP around the world, none have withstood an objective examination that presented unmistakable proof that UAP were the cause.”

For more information on CEFAA and the meeting, visit Kean’s blog post on the Huffington Post.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/chilean-government-says-ufos-pose-threat-video/29480/feed1Chilean government can’t explain UFO photoshttp://www.openminds.tv/chilean-government-cant-explain-ufo-photo/28846
http://www.openminds.tv/chilean-government-cant-explain-ufo-photo/28846#commentsWed, 09 Jul 2014 23:28:40 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=28846The Chilean government, one of the few governments to have an official UFO investigation organization, recently released a report regarding their investigation of two UFO photographs taken by miners in a secluded area of the Andes Mountain range.

]]>The Chilean government, one of the few governments to have an official UFO investigation organization, recently released a report regarding their investigation of two UFO photographs taken by miners in a secluded area of the Andes Mountain range. They ruled out man-made objects and have not come up with an explanation for the object in the images. The object remains unidentified.

The Chilean UFO organization is called the Committee for the Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena (CEFAA) and is part of their Ministerial Department of Civil Aeronautics (DGAC), which is similar to our FAA. They seek to identify UFOs in Chilean airspace as a matter of air safety.

Journalist Leslie Kean has a close relationship with CEFAA, and she posted details about the photos taken by the miners in her blog for the Huffington Post. She says the pictures were taken at the Collahuasi copper mine in northern Chile. It is a remote location 14,000 feet above sea level. The air is thin and very clear.

The UFO was spotted by four technicians in April, 2013. They say they saw a disk-shaped object hovering and moving around the sky for more than an hour. They estimated the object to be 2000 feet in the air. It made no sound. They captured two pictures of the object before it finally moved off to the east where they lost sight of it.

Although they captured the images over a year ago, they did not tell anyone for fear of being ridiculed. CEFAA did not become aware of the pictures until February of this year. The technicians had shown one of their supervisors the pictures, and he sent them to CEFAA. The four original witnesses did not want to talk to CEFAA, even though they were told they could do so anonymously. Their supervisor did relay what information he knew, and he did ask to remain anonymous.

CEFAA examined the photos and ruled out weather phenomenon and man-made objects. They noted that drones are used in the area, but did not believe the object in the images to be drone. International Affairs Director Jose Lay said, “People in that zone know about drones… Fishing companies use drones and they make a lot of noise. This was definitely not a drone.”

The first image captured by the miners. (Credit: CEFAA)

The analysis by CEFAA was that it was a solid object reflecting sunlight. They also felt that the object could be emitting its own light. (Credit: CEFAA)

The second image captured by the miners. (Credit: CEFAA)

According to Kean: “The text on this diagram of the enlarged second image indicates lines where very soft rays were reflected from an ‘extremely luminous half sphere.’ The analyst concludes that the object ‘emitted its own energy that does not coincide with the natural sunlight which is also reflected off the object.’ At noon, the brightness underneath could not have been caused by the sun, which was reflected off the top.” (Credit: CEFAA)

CEFAA concluded, “It is an object or phenomenon of great interest, and it can be qualified as a UFO.”

CEFAA would have liked to talk to the witnesses, but Lay told Kean, “We tried to contact them, and we got no reply. So we treated the material just as we have treated several others of the same or similar nature: we file them for future reference or comparison purposes. That’s all we can do in this case.”

Kean also got the input of a well known UFO photo analyst, Dr. Bruce Maccabee, via email. Maccabee was an optical physicist for the U.S. Navy. He told Kean, “In the second image there appears to be a very bright hemispherical shape, convex downward… possibly a UFO enveloped in a cloud of vapor.”

Given the limited data available, he was also able to determine that the object did move some distance between the time the photos were taken. Although, it is unknown how much time passed between photos.

“This is clearly not a normal thing seen in the sky (bird, plane, cloud, etc.),” Maccabee told Kean. “That makes it either the real thing – UFO – or a hoax, and it doesn’t appear to be a hoax. Although the inability to question witnesses does reduce the credibility. Certainly, this case is worthy of further study.

Since Kean’s story in the Huffington Post, many media outlets have picked up on it, including Fox and CNN.

CEFAA has had several cases they could not identify over the years. They post their case files online at www.cefaa.gob.cl.

]]>The next episode in our series covers Chile’s government organization CEFAA — [Comite De Estudios De Fenomenos Aeros Anomalos] translated into English, “The Committee for the Study of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena.”

Chile is one of the few countries around the world that has a government-backed UFO research organization. In Spanish UFOs are referred to as OVNIs. [Objecto Volador No Identificado] In 1997 the country publicly recognized it was experiencing UFO sightings and that the phenomenon was real. Some incidents could not be explained by natural phenomena and could not be identified as any type of man-made object.

In a historical first for UFO conferences in the USA, the just held 21st 2012 International UFO Congress in Fountain Hills, Arizona, counted with the participation of a government official who runs a project to investigate UFOs. Retired Chilean Air Force General Ricardo Bermúdez is the director of CEFAA (Committee of Studies of Anomalous Aerial Phenomena), which is part of DGAC, Chile’s Civil Aviation Agency equivalent to our FAA. General Bermúdez spoke at the Congress on Saturday Feb. 25, revealing a number of highly interesting cases involving commercial and military pilots, as well as an extraordinary daytime multiple video case showing a clear metallic-looking object during an important Chilean Air Force ceremony in 2010. The message throughout his lecture was unmistakably clear: some UFOs are real and may pose a threat to air safety operations, that’s why they should be investigated officially not only in Chile but throughout the world.

General Bermúdez began his power point presentation by outlining CEFAA’s mission and methodology. The Committee’s Mission is to:

Record and analyse all relevant reports concerning UAP [Unidentified Aerial Phenomena] occurring within the national territory, on the basis of a serious, objective and scientific analysis with the purpose of determining any possible risk to air operations.

CEFAA was created back in 1997 when General Bermúdez was the director of the Technical School of Aeronautics, where air traffic controllers and radar operators are trained and where the Committee was housed for a number of years. After its full reactivation in December 2009, CEFAA became a full time agency now housed in the National Aeronautics and Space Museum in Santiago. Bermúdez explained the agency has an “External Committee of Advisors” of eight top scientists from the Chilean Commission of Nuclear Energy, Aerospace Medicine at Santiago University, astronomers from the Metropolitan and Catholic Universities, a plasma physicist from Santiago University, a geographer and expert in satellite imagery from Chile State University, and two psychologists. There is also a CEFAA Internal Committee which includes experts on Operations Safety, Air Control Center, Meteorology, Air Accidents Investigations, Aerospace Engineering and Audiovisual.

“We have the support of each branch of our armed forces and police,” added Gen. Bermúdez, and these include military officers from the army, navy, air force, and two officials from the national police force. “We believe the phenomena is the same all over the world, we have relations with investigators from 14 countries,” continued Bermúdez. In some cases—for instance Uruguay’s CRIDOVNI or France’s GEIPAN—this liaison is with CEFAA’s official counterparts. In countries where no such public official agency exists, the Committee maintains relations with private scientific organizations like Dr. Richard Haines’ NARCAAP in the U.S.

Transparency Law & Aeronautical UFO Cases

CEFAA logo

On August 11, 2008, the Chilean government passed Law 20.285 known as “Transparency Law.” In some respects it works similarly to our Freedom of Information Act—government agencies have 20 days to responds to queries from the public regarding public records—but it also seems to go beyond the FOIA. With the exception of matters affecting national security and foreign relations, the Transparency Law was designed so government agencies can act in an open and transparent manner even in cases when no queries from the public were received. CEFAA has fully complied with the requirements of the Transparency Law, as explained in Gen. Bermúdez’s statement that “this is the way we deal with the phenomenon, openly and freely.”

Gen. Bermúdez receiving an award for Outstanding Research at the IUFOC banquet from MC Alejandro Rojas. (Credit: Antonio Huneeus)

Most countries that have released UFO records (USA, UK, France, Brazil, New Zealand, Spain, etc.) have done so primarily in the area of government paper files: UFO reports investigated by the armed forces, memoranda dealing with scientific, military and political aspects, correspondence, etc. A few have also released some UFO photos and footage, but none have released hard physical evidence. Because of the nature of CEFAA, the Chilean agency has released a different category of ufological evidence: audio recordings of communications between pilots and the control tower. Chile’s civil aviation agency DGAC has to insure “the safety of all air operations in the country” and considering Chile’s very long geography and its large amount of territorial waters in the Pacific Ocean all the way to Antarctica in the south and Easter Island in the west, this is a very big area of almost 20,000 nautical miles. “The CEFAA has access to all this information immediately, pilot communications, this is our main source of information,” said Gen. Bermúdez.

The bulk of the general’s presentation dealt with the aeronautical cases logged and investigated by CEFAA. He discussed in some detail a total of seven aeronautical UFO cases between 1978 and 2011, which remain unexplained to this day, playing excerpts of the radio communications between the pilots and the ATC (Air Traffic Control). The audio tapes are obviously in Spanish (some of them are posted in CEFAA’s website) but the lecture included English translations in big letters in the power point slides, so the cases are easy to follow.

Some of the sightings like a multiple-witness and near collision case at Puerto Montt airport in the south in 1988, or one at Chacalluta Airport in Arica in the north in 1997, were directly linked to the creation of the Committee. In the Arica case, for instance, after the Eco Inca army aircraft reports a UFO to the ATC, one can hear the control operator saying, “we’ve had several calls saying in that sector there is probably a UFO . . . We are on alert for any report . . . He [Eco Inca army plane] reports at 3 o’clock an object that’s moving at ‘incredible speed’. . . textual [pilot’s] expression . . .”

In another case involving three different aircraft approaching Santiago’s International Pudahuel Airport, one of the pilots can be heard clearly in the tape saying, “it [UFO] gives the impression of being a train with many windows and it can be seen perfectly well . . .” Commenting on this case, Bermúdez said: “We have here three airplanes in different frequencies describing the same situation, one crew saw windows like a train, now if there are windows we may think somebody is looking out, we never know.”

Yet another incident known as the Pelican case occurred on June 24, 2010 and it involved again three different aircraft—two airliners and a navy plane called Pelican. As put by Gen. Bermúdez, “three airplanes witnessed the same phenomenon, two commercial planes are approaching Santiago, the military plane is coming 300 miles from the north, and an object is cruising his airway. The pilot reports something he sees camouflaged in erratic motion.” In the audio communication, one hears the pilot saying, “ROGER . . . At this moment I can’t see it anymore . . . I could see a traffic loud and clear . . . it looked like a cloud . . . Camouflaged as a cloud but with erratic motion.”

Here is the excerpt from Gen. Bermúdez’s presentation at the 2012 IUFOC dealing with this particular incident:

This case, as well as another one in Punta Arenas detected by primary radar in 2011, is important because you have different professional pilots reporting the same object. As explained by Gen. Bermúdez:

Think for a moment, if one experienced commercial pilot reports to me that something flew across in front of his airplane, I pay careful attention; but now if a second commercial pilot reports the same a few seconds later, I become interested; but if a third pilot, a military one, confirms the same fact, I tend to believe it. In this case, do we have one UFO close to the airplanes, or we have two UFOs? If we have one, its incredible speed doesn’t correspond to anything we have now.

El Bosque multiple footage

Every four years there is change of guard of the Commander-in-Chief of the Chilean Air Force (FACH), which takes place at an important ceremony with an air parade at the Air Force Academy in El Bosque in Santiago. The last such ceremony, when General Jorge Rojas Avila became the current chief of the FACH, took place in El Bosque in the morning of November 4, 2010. As usual, the ceremony was attended by the President of Chile, Sebastián Piñera, all the commanders of the armed forces and top brass, the Minister of Defense and other cabinet members, the diplomatic corps and many other important officials including Gen. Bermúdez himself. The ceremony is popular with the public and widely photographed and filmed because it includes the air parade by all the different squadrons of the FACH, including the Halcones (Hawks) High Acrobatics Squad, which are very popular in Chile (similar to the USAF’s Thunderbirds).

Everything proceeded according to plan and nobody seemed to have noticed anything unusual during the ceremony. However, it now looks certain that someone else who was uninvited also decided to check the FACH ceremony, since sometime after the event CEFAA was contacted by eventually a total of seven different individuals who captured a metallic-looking objects moving extremely fast in the sky while different groups of FACH aircraft—the Halcones, F5s and F16s—flew over the Academy with all the VIPs.

This case clearly stands out in a world full of often dramatic and sensational UFO videos posted in YouTube, many of which come from anonymous sources and have a dubious pedigree. Here we have a case with seven different videos all showing the same thing. Below you can see a frame of the first video showing the best image of the UFO taken right after the Halcones’ flyby.

Frame from the first video at the FACH Ceremony in El Bosque, Nov. 4, 2010, showing a clear image of the metallic looking object. (Credit: CEFAA)

The second video taken during the same FACH ceremony showed exactly the same metallic-looking unidentified object flying right below a formation of F5 jets. As explained by Gen. Bermúdez in his lecture, “the object is very near the F5, and our study, the heat study” showed the similarity of “the F5 with the object, same for the shadow, a very interesting case.” The CEFAA analysis estimated that the radius of the UFO was between 5-10 meters.

Frame from the second El Bosque video with the F5s showing the heat signature of both the FACH jets and the UFO. (Credit: CEFAA)

The FACH’s El Bosque ceremony then proceeded with a flyby of eight F16s and once again the metallic-looking object appeared in yet another video. “If you think it’s not enough I have another surprise for you,” said Gen. Bermúdez, “this appeared only one fraction of a second, our non-believer astronomers calculated the speed according to Newton’s law, 18 times the F-16 speed, that is over 10,000 KM per hour.”

Frame from the third El Bosque video showing the F16s and UFO. The official analysis indicated the speed of the UFO was eighteen times faster than the F16s. (Credit: CEFAA)

Gen. Bermúdez showed the analysis done by the astronomers from CEFAA’s External Committee of Advisors, which established that the object was not a meteoroid, a comet, reentry of space junk, a bird or an airplane. Furthermore, the scientists’ report stated the UFO undertook “a risky maneuver in front of the Halcones from west to east” and that it did “a flight maneuver at low altitude and high speed.” The report also established that “the object shows light and shadow effects of metallic like reflections and shows ellipsoidal shape” and that “the land observers do not detect the object in spite that it passes over their heads, thereby it is not accompanied by a sound wave.” Finally, the report’s final significant point indicates “the object moves east with 25 degrees inclination. This is the same angle spacecraft enter the atmosphere.”

To recap the salient details about the El Bosque multiple footage case, Gen. Bermúdez stated in his IUFOC lecture that, “we have studied this case in different ways. First we gave it to the astronomers, who used their own software; second, we gave the film to the air force specialists (FACH’s Aerial Photogrammetric Service). Third, we did our own internal study; we also asked the opinion of Dr. [Richard] Haines and Bruce Maccabee. Maccabee agreed with our astronomers and Richard [Haines] said that there is an unknown aerial phenomenon.”

Final Conclusions & Proposition

After a lecture full of official evidences, both audio and visual, Gen. Bermúdez proceeded to list the conclusions about the UFO phenomenon reached by CEFAA. These are:

The Anomalous Aerial Phenomenon characterized as UFO is real and it is present inside and outside the Controlled Air Space.

We do not know what it is and where it came from.

It is necessary to continue studying the phenomenon.

It is necessary to share all the information.

The general then added that, “I believe all possibilities of risk to air operations, no matter how incredible, must be investigated; to ignore it is irresponsible.” Bermúdez then presented what he called his “Proposition” for a continuing serious program of investigation of the phenomenon beyond Chilean borders into the international arena. The three points of his proposal were:

It is necessary to a have a serious agency to direct the investigation in all the world.

This agency must collect and share information and proceed to make an effective scientific investigation.

I believe that this agency should be located in the United Nations as a part of the Space Affairs.

I also conducted a thorough interview with Gen. Ricardo Bermúdez during the International UFO Congress, so in the coming days and weeks we’ll continue to post material regarding Chile’s official UFO investigation. But by any standards available at ufological symposia, there can be little doubt that Gen. Bermúdez’s IUFOC presentation was a true breakthrough in the international study and public acceptance of UFOs. There is no doubt that when it comes to official UFO disclosure, Chile is now leading the way. Let’s hope that other nations will also join and work together to solve this intriguing mystery, and that the famous UN General Assembly Decision 33/426 of December 1978, calling for “the establishment of an agency or a department of the United Nations for undertaking, coordinating and disseminating the results of research into unidentified flying objects and related phenomena,” will be eventually revived.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/daily-ufo-headlines-3512/14570/feed0Chilean General to Speak at UFO Conferencehttp://www.openminds.tv/chilean-general-to-speak-at-ufo-conference-868/14085
http://www.openminds.tv/chilean-general-to-speak-at-ufo-conference-868/14085#commentsWed, 18 Jan 2012 18:57:14 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=14085Chilean Air Force General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermúdez, Director of Chile’s official Committee for the Study of Aerial Anomalous Phenomena (CEFAA) will address the International UFO Congress in Scottsdale, AZ this February.

]]>General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermudez will make a special announcement about official Chilean UFO Project at the 2012 International UFO Congress this February in Fountain Hills, Arizona.

Chilean Air Force General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermúdez, Director of Chile’s official Committee for the Study of Aerial Anomalous Phenomena (CEFAA) will address the International UFO Congress in Fountain Hills, AZ this February. This is the first time ever in the USA when a high-ranking military officer who runs an official government sponsored UFO project talks about the subject at a conference open to the general public.

“This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for us” says conference co-organizer Maureen Elsberry, “this is the first time in the U.S. that such a high-ranking government official has spoken to the public about an official government sponsored UFO project. It shows how serious other countries take the subject of UFOs. It’s something they feel is worthy of official investigation.”

General Bermúdez served as commander of the Third Air Brigade in southern Chile, Director of the Technical School of Aeronautics, Deputy Director of the Air Force Academy, and Air Attaché in London. He became Director of CEFAA shortly after Chile’s Directorate of Civil Aviation created this office in 1997.

CEFAA collects UFO cases mostly from commercial and military pilots. “The policy of CEFAA is to pursue solid cases with adequate scientific data,” stated Gen. Bermúdez, “but only if there is an indication that the safety of the aircraft might have been at risk.”

Such a case occurred in November of 2003 when a B 737-200 almost collided with a triangular formation of luminous spheres.

The co-pilot of the aircraft wrote in the official CEFAA report: “A few minutes after takeoff I observed a dark mass of triangular shape heading toward our aircraft. It approached us rapidly in a collision angle with us and I was able to skip it by making a right turn. When it passed next to us I observed a metallic object with a steely gray color which passed very quickly near the window of the commander of the aircraft.”

Gen. Bermúdez will outline the history, methodology and some of the best cases collected by CEFAA up to now. He is also expected to make an announcement about the need for an exchange of UFO data among different countries and between official and civilian research groups, to better understand this puzzling phenomenon.

“The CEFAA’s official position has always been to recognize that something is happening in our skies, but we, as yet, do not know what it is,” he said.

Gen. Bermúdez will speak on Saturday February 25th at 1:00 P.M. at the Fort McDowell Resort & Conference Center in Fountain Hills, Arizona. More information about his presentation can be found at http://www.ufocongress.com.

About the International UFO Congress:

The 2012 International UFO Congress will run Feb. 22-26 in Arizona

The International UFO Congress is an Arizona based organization dedicated to the dissemination of information related to many areas in ufology. It was established in 1991 and hosts an annual conference which is the largest of its kind in the United States. It features presentations given by authors, researchers, experts, enthusiasts, and those who have witnessed paranormal or anomalous phenomena from all over the world. It also provides a forum to discuss the experiences and findings. This event usually has over 20 Speakers, a Film Festival, tons of vendors as well as experiencer sessions. Topics generally covered are abduction, UFO sightings, UFO crashes, crop circles, paranormal experiences, government conspiracy and much more.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/chilean-general-to-speak-at-ufo-conference-868/14085/feed0New video from Chilean government UFO Committeehttp://www.openminds.tv/chilean-ufo-video/11229
http://www.openminds.tv/chilean-ufo-video/11229#commentsSat, 30 Jul 2011 06:20:27 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=11229A video uploaded by La Tercera, Chile’s largest daily newspaper, containing several clips of audio communications between pilots and air traffic controllers released by the Chilean government’s Committee for the Study of Aerial Anomalous Phenomena (Spanish acronym CEFAA), was recently picked up by several American and international UFO websites.

]]>A video uploaded by La Tercera, Chile’s largest daily newspaper, containing several clips of audio communications between pilots and air traffic controllers released by the Chilean government’s Committee for the Study of Aerial Anomalous Phenomena (Spanish acronym CEFAA), was recently picked up by several American and international UFO websites. The material was actually released back in late January 2011 by CEFAA under the Transparency Law and the full audio communications of four UFO cases were posted in CEFAA’s own websiteshortly thereafter.

I outlined the history and background of CEFAA in the current issue of Open Minds magazine in the article “South American Governments Open New Official UFO Agencies,” which also covers the Uruguayan Air Force project CRIDOVNI and Peru’s OIFAA. A second part covering the recent launching of the Argentinean Air Force commission CEFAE and the official studies undertaken in Brazil and Ecuador will be published in the next issue of Open Minds. It looks like most of South America is currently taking a very proactive official and publicly open effort to tackle UFOs.

The tape from La Tercera is a bit confusing since the cases are not titled or dated, and so I had to figure it out based on my own first-hand knowledge of Chilean ufology. I also contacted by email Gustavo Rodríguez, a retired air traffic controller (ATC) who is CEFAA’s Executive Secretary, to clarify some details. I’ve known Mr. Rodríguez for several years and I interviewed him once at length in the late 1990s during a trip to Santiago.

The video begins with a case known as “Eco Inka” registered in the northern city of Arica back in 1997, which is important because it was one of the incidents that triggered the creation of CEFAA later that year. The CEFAA website gives the following summary of this case: “On April 2, 1997, at 21 hours local time, an aircraft from the Chilean Army was doing a nighttime instrumental test flight in the Chacalluta Airport in Arica. When contacted by the controller, who was receiving several phone calls from the city, the pilot responded that he could see a light to the west that was changing position at high speed.” Here are the relevant excerpts from the audio communication:

Twin-engine turbo-prop aircraft of the Chilean Army of the type that was involved in the 1997 Chacalluta Airport UFO case in Arica. (Image credit: CEFAA)

TOWER: Sir, from your position, can you observe toward the sector of Chuño Hill an object somewhat different from normal?

AIRCRAFT: I understand, toward the sector of Buitre?

TOWER: Correct, sir.

AIRCRAFT: From my position apparently I am not seeing anything unusual… Now I have an object approximately at 3 o’clock from my position, I estimate a light which is a little bit higher than the last lights of the city [Arica].

TOWER: Received, could you describe the type of light?

AIRCRAFT: Uh…now it disappeared! It looked similar to the yellow lights of the city… now it appeared again, but more forward… it disappeared again…

TOWER: Received, we have received different [phone] calls saying that in that sector there was an Unidentified Flying Object. We want to be alerted of any report.

AIRCRAFT: Look, it was incredible, I hadn’t seen it, but it really changed position very fast, I had the opportunity of seeing it.

The Tobalaba case

View of the Eulogio Sánchez airfield in the Santiago suburb of Tobalaba. (Image credit: Lycaon.cl/Wikimedia Commons)

Most of the video posted by La Tercera is devoted to a case reported in an airfield in the Santiago suburb of Tobalaba. The video doesn’t provide a date and an article published in the newspaper La Tercera on January 29, 2011, gives a dates of October 1990. However, this is incorrect, according to the email from Gustavo Rodríguez. The CEFAA website gives the following summary of the Tobalaba case:

“In the year of 1978, a round object which reflected the morning sunlight was observed by the personnel of the control tower of the Eulogio Sánchez airfield in Tobalaba. After making circular movements to the east of the airfield, the object landed in the side of the hill located in front of the airfield. In the next minute the unidentified object took off and disappeared at great speed toward the northwest.”

The video utilized a UFO footage which seemed to correspond to what was being described by the pilot and air traffic controller. I was surprised because I was familiar with this case and wasn’t aware that it was supposed to include clear daytime UFO footage, so I checked with Gustavo Rodríguez. He responded that the footage was not part of the CEFAA files and did nor correspond to the 1978 Tobalaba case. It was provided by a friend of a CEFAA advisor from a collection of hundreds of UFO footages from around the world to illustrate the case because it was somewhat similar in terms of terrain and shape of the object. At this time, the man has not been able to find it again so that we don’t know when and where it was taken.

I any case, here are some relevant excerpts of the audio communications of the Tobalaba case:

TOWER: Tobalaba Terminal, I am reporting that we have in front in the direction of the mountains a round craft lit with the sun moving north, in a slow trajectory toward the north.

AIRCRAFT: Correct, can you repeat the information?

TOWER: Affirmative, a round object lit with the sun over Tobalaba with a slow displacement toward the north.

AIRCRAFT: Can you confirm the approximate altitude?

TOWER: I estimate around eight to nine thousand feet.

AIRCRAFT: Correct, received, keep me informed.

TOWER: OK! Now it’s moving toward the south, in a southern direction and making ascending and descending circles… slow, now it’s gaining speed.

AIRCRAFT: Thanks.

TOWER: A glider, I’m afraid it’s not, it’s not an airplane either because it developed very high speeds, at times very slow, it descended and ascended rapidly and now at this moment it’s landing on the side of a small bank of a hill.

This is undoubtedly an important case because of the following factors: it happened in daytime; there were multiple witnesses including qualified air traffic controllers at a Chilean airfield; the object changed trajectory and speed several times; the object landed nearby and then took off very rapidly.

There was no official UFO investigation in Chile at the time of the Tobalaba case in 1978. Gustavo Rodríguez, in fact, was one of the pioneers who encountered several pilot cases in the course of his long career as an ATC. He began collecting them on his own and by the mid-1980s published two landmark articles in Información Aeronáutica, the official magazine of Chile’s General Directorate of Civil Aviation (DGAC, the equivalent to our FAA), urging ATCs throughout the country to preserve any tape where UFOs were reported. His efforts paid off in 1997 when he was named Executive Secretary of CEFAA, an agency which is under the DGAC, and then regained his position when the committee was reactivated in 2009.

In the January 29 article in the newspaper La Tercera, Rodríguez explained that “we are worried when the phenomenon occurs within our controlled airspace and it manifests very close to an aircraft.” That was the case indeed of the third audio excerpt posted by La Tercera—a near collision case with the Chilean Air Line (LAN) flight 045 at the El Tepual airport in the southern city of Puerto Montt in 1988. We provided excerpts of this tape in a previous article in this website, discussing the release of the book Ufología Aeronáutica by Captain Rodrigo Bravo of the Chilean Army, in which this case was analyzed by the military officer.

Again, we have a fascinating multiple-witness case involving qualified ATC personnel and airline pilots. The pilot of LAN flight 045 almost freaks out in the tape when he says, “listen, I have an airplane, I have a light here in front, right on our flight path!” The controller looks out of the window and can clearly see “a white light coming to the airport from the north,” following it for about 5 minutes. He described it at one point, “I had the impression that this lower part was flat and with a metallic aspect; I estimate that it was circular and with a diameter of about 60 meters.”

Gustavo Rodríguez explained to La Tercera that CEFAA had received 183 cases from civilian and military pilots, of which 12 (6.6%) remained “unidentified” at this time. The majority of the cases (74.8%) are explained in prosaic terms like weather balloons, planets, aircraft and birds. Another 11 cases were catalogued as “stealthy,” a term used by CEFAA for cases when a person takes a photo or video which shows an unexplained object or phenomenon which was not visually observed by the witness and whose origin cannot be explained after scientific analysis.

An example of this “stealthy” category is a photo taken in the reservoir of El Yeso in Cajón del Maipo in the outskirts of Santiago on the afternoon of February 14, 2010. A family took several photos but only one showed a mysterious object, which they didn’t see visually. The case was discovered and analyzed by Eric Martínez of the civilian UFO group CIFAE, who send it to the Committee. The CEFAA report states: “CIFAE suspects that the object could be a reflection since it maintains that the photo in question was taken from inside a vehicle. The photos were sent to NARCAP [Dr. Richard Haines’ group in California which works with CEFAA], which concluded in a long report that it shows a solid object with its own light. Conclusion: Open case, pending.”

UFO photo from the CEFAA files taken by a family in the El Yeso reservoir in Cajón del Maipo, near Santiago, on Feb. 14, 2010, considered “stealthy” because it wasn’t seen by the witnesses. Conclusion: Open case, pending. (Image credit: CEFAA)

Close-up of UFO.

We asked Gustavo Rodríguez to send us the list of the 12 unexplained cases, which he did. With the exception of the El Yeso photo, they are all aeronautical cases. Eight took place in 2010, three in 2009 and one in 2003. There is one additional “stealthy” photographic case taken by a pilot in the Tuqui airfield in Ovalle on November 22, 2009. According to CEFAA’s Conclusion, “the result of the analysis done by NARCAP shows that it’s a solid structure shaped like a disc. Conclusion: Open case.” We don’t have the time or space to discuss the twelve cases in detail here, but I want to mention at least one of them, a report by the crew of a B 737-200 airliner, which had taken off from the Cerro Moreno Airport in Antofagasta 26 minutes after midnight on November 14, 2003. Here is the description of the phenomenon provided by the flight commander to CEFAA:

“There were three ultra white spheres, fluorescent and of equal intensity, very intense, placed in a triangular shape with a separation between them of no more than one meter; they were heading over us. My first reaction was to duck toward the floor because I though we were going to crash. I saw absolutely independent spheres flying in an exactly triangular formation. It was a big scare and I don’t have an explanation.”

The co-pilot provided the following testimony to CEFAA: “A few minutes after take-of I observed a dark mass of triangular shape heading toward our aircraft. It approached us rapidly in a collision angle with us and I was able to skip it by making a right turn. When it passed next to us I observed a metallic object with a steely gray color which passed very quickly near the window of the commander of the aircraft. We consulted with the control center if they had any traffic, report of birds or anything of the sort; the response was negative. The fear was major.”

Although the sighting lasted just 2 or 3 seconds, because of the proximity and near collision it made a lasting impression on the crew. The object was not detected on radar. CEFAA’s Conclusion: “Open case, pending.”

The material thus far released by CEFAA is highly interesting, dramatic and worrisome from a point of view of air flight safety. We’ll be able to find out much more about the official investigations in Chile at our next 2012 International UFO Congress in February 21-26 in Fort McDowell since the director of CEFAA, General (Ret.) Ricardo Bermúdez, has officially confirmed that he will be one of the speakers. This is the first time ever that an American UFO conference will count with the participation of an air force general who is the head of an official government UFO project. Needless to say, we are very excited at Open Minds with this important breakthrough.